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When the Mountain View Whisman school board passed the district’s 2024-25 budget last month, it projected a $4.1 million deficit for this coming school year. The district is now preparing for the possibility of an even larger shortfall after the city and school district failed to reach an agreement on sharing money from a special tax district in northern Mountain View.
The board passed the district’s budget on a 5-0 vote at a June 13 meeting. The budget projects $113.9 million in revenues and $118 million in expenditures in 2024-25. That’s based on conservative assumptions about property tax growth, which is the district’s main revenue source.
However, it also assumes the district will get $6.5 million from the Shoreline Regional Park Community, a special tax district that covers much of the city north of Highway 101. That’s now uncertain after the most recent funding agreement expired at the end of June. The city and school district remain at odds over reaching a new deal.
The school district has said it is now preparing for potential budget cuts, while the city has said that there’s still a deal on the table the school district could sign.
Breaking down the budget
Beyond the question of funding from the Shoreline tax district, Mountain View Whisman’s budget involves a number of other moving pieces and projections.
The budget assumes that secured property tax revenue, which is the district’s main funding source, will grow by 4% in the 2024-25 year, 4% in the 2025-26 year and 2% in the 2026-27 year. Rebeca Westover, the district’s chief business officer, said that the district always aims to be conservative in its budget assumptions.
Property tax growth has historically come in higher than the district projected. Last school year, the district projected 3% growth. Currently, it’s estimated that secured property tax revenue increased 7.51% for the 2023-24 year, Hausman said.
Another element of the district’s funding is its parcel tax. Voters approved a parcel tax measure in 2017 that brings in roughly $2.8 million annually and expires on June 30, 2025. The district is asking voters to approve a new parcel tax on this November’s ballot, which would replace the current one and last for eight years.
Because that measure hasn’t passed yet, the district is only including parcel tax revenue for the 2024-25 school year, not the projections for the two subsequent school years.
Mountain View Whisman’s budget projects that the district will run a $7.3 million deficit in 2025-26 and a $12.1 million deficit in 2026-27. That assumes no parcel tax funding, but does include Shoreline funds.
According to Rudolph, these projected deficits would shrink dramatically if the parcel tax passes. It requires two-thirds voter approval and would raise an estimated $5.4 million annually.
“We’re allowed to deficit spend. Obviously we continue to work to try and get out of deficit spending. We want to run a flat budget if possible, but it’s going to take a while to get there,” Rudolph said. “Without speaking on behalf of our board, I think our board is okay with that, considering the work that we are doing to close the achievement gap and to address some of the negative impacts from COVID.”
The budget also includes raises for staff in each of the next three years. The district approved a three-year union contract that gives teachers a 5% raise in the 2024-25 year, followed by 5% in 2025-26 and 4% in 2026-27. The contract includes a provision that if voters don’t approve a parcel tax this November, the district could reopen discussions over salary for the latter two school years. The district approved similar agreements with non-teaching staff and management.
In the 2026-27 school year, the budget projects that the district’s reserve level will drop to 14.16%, below the 17-20% range that a 2018 school board resolution set for the third year of any budget. The school board voted in May to allow the district to drop below 17%. That was tied to a decision to stick with the existing middle school bell schedule, in the face of opposition to a planned change that the district said would have saved money.
Shoreline funding looms over district’s planning
While the budget assumes funding from Shoreline in each of the next three years, there currently isn’t an agreement in place to make that happen.
Property taxes from within the Shoreline Regional Park Community, which includes Google’s headquarters and other tech offices, aren’t split up according to the normal system. Instead, the vast majority goes into a special fund set aside to maintain and improve that area.
The city acts as the steward of tax revenue from that area and has agreed to share some of the money with Mountain View Whisman and the Mountain View Los Altos High School District for nearly 20 years.
Last month, Mountain View Whisman’s school board passed an extension agreement that didn’t match the one the city and MVLA had agreed to. The city has made clear that Mountain View Whisman won’t receive funding without a signed deal.
Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph told the Voice that the district needs to prepare for the possibility the Shoreline funds won’t be there, and therefore plans to take the money out of the budget when the school board receives the next budget update in December. District spokesperson Shelly Hausman said in an email that the district is “hopeful” it will come to an agreement with the city, but believes it’s prudent not to assume it will receive the money.
Without that money, Rudolph said that things like changing class sizes, laying off support staff and reducing professional development may be on the table.
“I don’t want to put the cart in front of the horse, but I think it’s fair to assume that there will … definitely be changes in the operating practices of the district,” Rudolph said.
When asked why the district wouldn’t sign the agreement that the city and MVLA have already agreed to – and thereby guarantee funding for the coming school year – Rudolph reiterated objections the school district has raised around what it sees as a lack of negotiations over the deal, and about the potential for the Shoreline tax district to issue bonds.
City spokesperson Lenka Wright told the Voice in an email that the Shoreline Community needed to retain the ability to issue bonds to pay for capital improvements, that issuing bonds has never impacted its ability to pay the school districts, and that Mountain View Whisman unilaterally passed its own agreement without discussion.
“If the Mountain View Whisman School District thinks it is fiscally prudent and preferable to make budget cuts rather than sign an extension of the agreement that has provided $55,916,098 in funding to the district over the past 19 years, that is their prerogative. However, there is an alternative,” Wright said, pointing to the option for the district to sign the agreement that MVLA and the city have approved.
If Mountain View Whisman doesn’t sign by mid-September, city officials are prepared to create a two-party agreement with MVLA, Wright said.
In 2022 the district’s General Fund had 113 MIllion in revenues and $97 Million expenditures. Revenues have been rising by all accounts with 7.5% more property taxes in 2023 and 7.7% more in 2024 based on the assessor’s valuations for the 2024-25 fiscal year based on January 2024 valuations.
So 2 obvious issues. Why is the district projecting $113 Million in revenues for 2024-25? Why have expenditures allegedly increased from $97 Million to $118 Million, $21 Million, in just 2 years? That’s almost a 20% increase, which seems artificially high. Should not the district have ALREADY budgeted some restrain in spending???? Enrollment had decreased substantially in 2022 compared to 3-4 years earlier. Tapering off in spending should have naturally happened after 2022 since enrollment remained at the lower level.
Long, I am too lazy to look at the budget from prior years, but it’s there and you should look it up.
Most of the budget goes to teacher salaries. Pretty sure the union pay raise is a big part of this. The last contract was a big raise for the teachers.
MVWSD is pulling the wool over the eyes of their board. Their published budget does not show the breakdown of spending as to salaries. To get an honest view you have to look at what’s on ed-data.org and other places they are required to report. That data is from 2022-23 because it lags. The total spend was $97 Million, broken down to $36.5M Classified (Teacher) salaries plus $16.3M other employee salaries and $24M benefits. So add that together and Human Resources cost $76.8M out of the $97M. Even if you figure 5% salaries increase each year, that doesn’t explain how the total went up 20%. Something else is going on, some other way to eat up the cash.